The Deep

by Alma Katsu

  But now, he couldn’t. Even if she was rich and deserved it.

  “And what of Jack? The captain has said women and children only in the lifeboats. Jack insists that he will remain on the ship. He won’t be seen a coward.” Her voice trembled.

  “Your husband’s a brave man,” Les said. Me, I’m on one of those lifeboats if I have to dress in me grandmother’s Sunday best.

  They were going up the stairs now, narrow metal stairs, mean and plain, meant for the crew who shoveled coal and stoked the engines and the stewards with their trays of tea things and extra blankets. Her skirts caught on the metal edges, her heels in the grates, and Les grabbed her elbow more than once to keep her from falling on her belly.

  “I—I can’t go to New York without my husband,” she said. Her voice was so frightened now, indistinguishable from a girl’s. “They hate me. I’m a pariah to them. They’ll eat me alive.”

  They were on the upper decks now, Les reasoned, judging from their surroundings outside the stairwell. They were maybe one flight down from the boat deck where they’d be loading the lifeboats. He could tell by the great swarms of people rushing this way and that, the frightened burble of the crowds. He did his best to protect Maddie Astor, holding her up by her arm, shoving people out of their way. He wore no coat and was freezing, his teeth chattering and the tendons in his neck straining. But he couldn’t stop moving.

  “We’re going to get you to a boat, Mrs. Astor. You’re going to be all right. . . . You’re going to be fine because you have to be, don’t you?” They stopped now, close to where they were loading one of the lifeboats. He took her hands in his—she wore gloves, finest calfskin, whereas his hands were bare and near ice—and gave them a squeeze. “Listen to me, now. Trust me. You owe it to this baby to survive. You have no choice. Only you can save it. Your husband wants you to do this. You must do it—for him.”

  She was crying. Looking into his eyes and crying.

  “It’s going to be hard, but you’re going to be fine. I can’t see all of the future, but I can see that. You have to be tough for your baby and your husband. They’re both depending on you. Now, get into this lifeboat. Here you go.” He held her hand as she climbed awkwardly into the swaying, dangling boat, handing her off to the crewman inside like the father of the bride at the altar handing his daughter to the man she will marry. Handing her off to the future. Funny, in that moment, he wasn’t cold anymore. He felt much, much better. He wasn’t even afraid.

  He felt a jostle beside him and there was Dai, dazed to see him but shocked, too. He’d seen that look before on the boys who stumbled into the ring for the first time, thinking they were tough enough because they’d had a scrap or two in the schoolyard. Dai must’ve been scared out of his mind for him, Les realized, and was overcome by the sheer luck of finding him free and standing on the boat deck, the two of them together—for what looked increasingly like the end. The very end.

  They had started to lower the lifeboat with Mrs. Astor and a group of other women into the water but then stopped for some unfathomable reason. They were shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear them over the crowd. Madeleine Astor was waving her arm at him, beckoning him. “We need a man to row,” the crewman called through cupped hands. “Jump down, jump down. You saved her life, she says. We can take you.”

  Les peered into the crowded lifeboat. There was only one tiny square of wood visible, next to the oarlock. Room for one man, and one man only.

  He remembered the day he met Dai at a squalid little training room set up in an empty warehouse in Pontypridd. It seemed like a lifetime ago. There was this big, strapping young fellow punching a sack filled with sawdust strung from the rafters, hitting it with so much power and might that the building shook with each blow. The sack split open in no time, spilling sawdust all over the floor. You knew Dai Bowen was going places, that Pontypridd wasn’t going to contain him for long.

  And it wouldn’t have, if Leslie hadn’t taken up with him.

  Leslie couldn’t stay out of trouble. Life was one scrape after another, whether with the authorities or the bookies. Dai had stood by him throughout it all. He never moved on to London, despite all the promises from fight promoters and rich would-be patrons. Dai just shook his head and told them he couldn’t leave, not yet, but he never explained why.

  America was supposed to have been their chance to start over.

  Their last chance.

  They stood together at the edge of the deck. The railing had been removed so that the lifeboats could be swung out over the water. The boat hung six feet lower than where they stood. Men were vying for Lieutenant Moody’s attention, both passengers and crewmen, begging to take that last seat. There was no time to argue.

  It was his last chance to make things right.

  He leaned close to Dai’s ear, close enough to kiss. “Never doubt that I chose you.”

  Then he gave him a shove, knocking him into the lifeboat.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  A hand grabbed Annie’s arm as she attempted to rush by. It was Lieutenant Lightoller. “Stewardess, there’s room for you in this boat.”

  The vessel was packed tight with older women dressed in a mishmash of overcoats and furs, life belts strapped over everything awkwardly, some outlandish dress hat perched on messy hair to top it all. Each and every one of them was frightened, a few were crying. Annie recognized the face of the man put in charge of the rudder—a nodding acquaintance—but not the two sailors at the oars.

  She drew back from him. “But I don’t want to go. . . . I’m looking for someone.”

  He frowned at her as he would a child. “That’s an order, miss. I need a stewardess aboard to take care of those two elderly passengers—Do you see them?” He nodded discreetly in the direction of two frail women sitting in the middle of the boat. They looked like wraiths, their nightgowns peeking out from their life belts, diaphanous white skirts and sleeves flapping in the wind. The two old women held hands like lost schoolchildren. As though holding hands would save them.

  They’re dead already, she wanted to tell Lightoller.

  He wrestled Annie over the side and into the boat before she had a chance to break away; and before she knew it, the lifeboat was being lowered. The man at the rudder looked terrified, his knuckles white on the tiller, but he scowled at her to hide his fear. “You heard Mr. Lightoller: take the seat next to those passengers and do as you’re told.”

  But Annie stood where she was and scanned the decks for Mark or Ondine. Her heart sank with every second that ticked by: there were so many people on the ship, more than she’d realized. She’d never seen most of them before, confined to the first-class section. She started to understand that she would probably never see either Mark or the baby again.

  She turned away, resigned to taking her seat, when a miracle occurred. There was Caroline on the other side of the lifeboat, holding Ondine in her arms. The baby was crying and flailing, as though fighting to be free of her mother. And there was a look of fright on Caroline’s face, almost indescribable—as though she was seeing a ghost. It’s me, Annie realized with a jolt: she’s frightened of me.

  Because she knew, didn’t she? Annie knew her secret. She was guilty—it was plain to see now. Annie lunged toward her—but as she did, Caroline panicked, turning too abruptly in her spot. She stumbled against the side. The vessel rocked with the sudden shifting of weight.

  Annie gripped her seat as everyone on board seemed to shuffle and shift like dominoes, causing the boat to buckle a second time (maybe helped from above, one of the seamen mishandling the ropes, the lifeboat bobbling) and in the blink of an eye, Caroline stumbled—

  She hit the inner lip of the boat and fell backward over the edge.

  Ondine still in her arms.

  Without taking a moment to breathe, Annie threw herself at the side just in time to see the froth of white where Caroline had fall
en into the black water. The smell of brine mushroomed into the air, like a gasp from the sea.

  Ondine.

  There was no hesitation, not an instant of thought. Annie leapt over the side after them.

  * * *

  —

  Frigidly cold. Bubbles teased her, as though someone was breathing down her neck. The taste of salt and filth filled her mouth, like a deep-held memory.

  For a whole moment, the water wrapped around her, dark and womblike. Then she burst above the surface.

  Still, it was completely black; Annie flailed out her hands, waves continuing to slosh over her, rising all around in the darkness of the night. She listened to the sound of panicked thrashing and tried to pinpoint the direction it was coming from, but there was noise everywhere: the movement of other lifeboats splashing in the sea, items being pitched off the Titanic’s upper decks. People jumping to have it over with, because they couldn’t live with their fear for another minute.

  And beneath it all, a kind of low, slurping hiss—terrifying and everywhere. The sound of the ship itself, taking on weight. Succumbing to the hard suck of the deep.

  She treaded water as she swiveled in a slow, cold circle. Caroline could not be far—unless she’d gone under already.

  Then she heard it, the most discernible noise in the cacophony: a baby’s cry. It was straight ahead. She swam toward the noise confidently: she was as good as a seal in water. The water was her element, always had been. There was Caroline, bobbing straight ahead, her blue hands holding the baby above lapping waves even though she herself was sinking.

  Annie had a choice. Reach out and Ondine would be in her arms in a moment, the struggling Caroline lost to the waves. Or—

  She pulled Caroline up from the water, able to keep her face just bobbing above the surface.

  “Hang on to Ondine, Mrs. Fletcher, and I’ll keep you afloat—”

  She would save them both.

  No matter what Caroline had done, it didn’t mean she deserved to die. Or if it did, it was not Annie’s judgment to make but that of God and the law.

  But Caroline gargled and cried out, barely able to balance herself. She heaved the baby at Annie. “You won’t be able to. I’m not wearing a life belt . . .”

  Through the churning darkness, Annie saw the swirl of heavy coats, their pastel colors wavering, like sodden ghosts. One of Caroline’s favored dresses. Annie knew wool was heavy as sandbags when wet; she may as well have wrapped herself in an anchor.

  Caroline’s face was blue in the starlight. Annie was holding Ondine over her shoulder—the baby was crying in her ear, but she couldn’t hear it—the world had gone silent. Caroline was speaking, but Annie couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  “Save her,” Caroline seemed to mouth. “Save her.”

  A memory came to Annie, even as she tried to yank at Caroline’s collar, to keep the woman’s mouth above the salty waves. Caroline was tiring. She looked exhausted. She was swallowing so much water. . . .

  The cardinal rule of survival in the sea, Annie. Beware a drowning person. In their panic, they will pull you under with them. She’d heard the sentiment many times, but when Des had said it to her, he’d meant something else by it. He’d meant, I can’t save you, Annie.

  He’d meant, God can’t save us all.

  He’d meant, It’s either you or me.

  And he’d chosen.

  Distress rockets flared and sputtered suddenly overhead, illuminating the sea, and for a brief moment, Annie thought she saw Caroline’s face change. The water lapping over her distorted her features, so it was hard to know for sure, but she looked like a different person. A pretty girl whose face had been ravaged by angry slashes.

  A name reverberated through her mind: Lillian.

  Annie felt such a strong sense of recognition at the face and the name that she let out a cry and let go of Lillian.

  No, of Caroline.

  And then, Annie knew. Lillian was haunting them because she wanted her daughter back.

  The water had jolted her awake and alive, for what seemed like the first time in days.

  By now the lifeboat was in the water and was headed toward the two women. Sixty feet away, fifty . . . but it was too late. They would not reach the pair in time.

  Lillian was gone and Caroline was before her but falling through the water, slipping out of Annie’s hand. She had closed her eyes and now her whole beautiful face drifted under the water. Annie gasped, treading water, balancing the baby, crying out silently even as Caroline’s billowing dress and darkened hair swirled into the inky black, a final flag of surrender, and gone.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  William Stead leaned over the railing. It was almost impossible to fathom what was happening. He’d known these people only a few days, but he felt close to them, and now they were in peril.

  He could hardly believe what he’d just seen: his stewardess had leapt out of the lifeboat heroically to save Caroline Fletcher and her baby. Along with every other person on the port side, he watched as Annie Hebbley tried to keep Caroline Fletcher’s head above water, holding his breath as the waves washed over the young woman’s head time and again. He squinted to focus on Caroline’s face, afraid for her, wanting to remember her . . . and was surprised when he thought he saw Eliza Armstrong instead. Eliza bobbing in the water. Eliza slipping through Annie Hebbley’s hands . . . It had to be his eyes playing tricks on him, or his mind. There in the water, Eliza in peril. She would always be in peril, in Stead’s mind.

  “Why doesn’t she take the baby to the lifeboat?” the man next to him growled. “The mother is a lost cause. That’s damned irresponsible of her. They could all drown.”

  They could all drown. It was a slap to Stead’s face, jolting him awake.

  That heroic young lady could drown.

  Was she the only hero on this ship?

  Do not think about what you are about to do. Just do it.

  His life belt hung in his hand; he hadn’t put it on yet. He tore off his overcoat and tossed aside his hat, then slipped the clumsy life belt over his shoulders. He climbed over the railing and, before any of the people standing next to him realized when he was doing, jumped.

  You are not a young man, Stead. This is madness.

  He couldn’t even recall the last time he went in the water. Maybe ten years ago, he had taken a vacation to Brighton and done a bit of bathing at the shore. He still remembered the gray bathing suit he’d worn. He had never been one for vacations, let alone the seashore. It had been an anomaly.

  He couldn’t believe how cold the water was. He was surprised his heart hadn’t stopped. His mouth had been open when he leapt and he’d swallowed a good deal of seawater. None of that mattered. Move, and keep moving, or you shall die.

  By luck, he wasn’t far from Annie Hebbley. She’d given up on Caroline Fletcher and—Stead realized with horror—for some inconceivable reason, was trying to swim to the Titanic. She could use only one arm, the other holding the baby to her shoulder, keeping the head out of the water.

  She’ll never make it.

  He managed to swim next to her. “Miss Hebbley, what are you doing? There’s a lifeboat not a dozen yards behind you—you must go to the lifeboat.”

  Her face had a strange set he hadn’t seen before. “No—I must get back to the ship. I must get to Mark.”

  “Think of the baby. The baby will die.”

  Stead could see the girl was thinking, as tired and dazed as she was. Listening. He was able to nudge her toward the lifeboat, which had kept doggedly rowing toward them. Between the two of them, they were able to keep the baby’s head out of the water. But as soon as Stead delivered the baby into the outstretched arms of the people in the lifeboat, the stewardess turned away and began heading again for the Titanic.

  Fool girl. Addled by the cold. I should swim afte
r her. But the cold water was leaching the last of his strength away and the stewardess was swimming like a woman possessed.

  Something flashed overhead in the light from the ship—a deck chair. Someone had thrown it, perhaps thinking Annie Hebbley could use it to float, but it fell on her. She’d been unprepared and disappeared beneath it. For a long horrible moment, Stead held his breath, waiting to see if she would resurface. But there was nothing, just the wooden deck chair bobbing on the waves.

  He swam toward her as quickly as he could. By the time he reached her, she had floated to the surface. He managed to wrestle off his life belt and put it on her. The lifebelt was quickly becoming useless, but it would help keep her afloat. She was unconscious and unable to swim so he paddled back to the lifeboat, pulling her behind him. Women reached over the side of the lifeboat and hauled her on board.

  But when Stead started to hoist himself over the side, the crewman at the rudder stopped him. “I’m afraid there’s no room for you in the boat,” he said. “We’re over capacity as it is.”

  “But he’s a hero,” one of the women said. “We have to bring him on board.”

  “Hold on to the side,” another woman said to him. “You shall be safe enough.”

  The woman had no idea how cold the water was, Stead knew. She was wrong, ridiculously so. His teeth chattered uncontrollably as he treaded water. His mind started to cloud, he was aware of that much. He was so cold and so weak that he could no longer feel his body.

  He started to get drowsy. He’d lost track of how long he’d been in the water. Ten minutes? If I fall asleep, I’ll drown—but he couldn’t see how he could possibly stay awake.

  He tried to watch the events unfurling on the ship. The lifeboats being lowered. The increasingly rough struggles on the Titanic as panic set in, as men realized there would be no last-minute rescue. Eventually, it was too painful to watch and he had to turn away.

  He held on to the lifelines dangling from the side of the lifeboat as it rowed away. “You don’t want to be sucked under as the ship goes down, do you?” the man at the tiller snapped testily to the women who thought they should stay and rescue more jumpers as the two crewmen pulled at the oars. The argument continued as Stead’s fingers slipped off the lifeline, and no one noticed when he fell behind and sank beneath the surface of the water. I loved you, Eliza, was one of his last thoughts. And: I would have protected you forever. All this time, that’s all I wanted you to know.